Book Review: Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Summary from GoodReads:

Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn’t believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she’s ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland’s inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she’s always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it’s the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who’s everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

My Review:

I think I’m in the minority here with my opinion on Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson. I’m disappointed, because I wanted to join in the gushing praise – I’ve been fascinated by Tiger Lily ever since, as a little girl, I saw her brief appearance in Disney’s Peter Pan. I used to look for her when we’d go to Disneyland/world. I credit Tiger Lily for my current interest in Native American literature and culture (of which I am finally diving into this fall with a class!).

So when I say that I was disappointed by Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson, understand that I do it with a heavy heart. Here is why this book didn’t work for me.

Narration. The narrator in this book is Tinkerbell – and there were times I knew it was Tink, and times I forgot and then was suddenly jarred back to that realization with her profession of love (first I thought that I was in Tiger Lily’s head which was totally weird given the context) or some other thing that just didn’t fit into the flow of the story. This could have been a much more powerful novel if told from Tiger Lily’s point of view, or even that of her adoptive parent, the marvelously transgender-ed Tik-Tok. It was just too strange, hearing a story told about another woman from a another womanish (even a fairy woman’s) point of view.

Inconsistency in the story. Anderson did a fairly decent job explaining the whole aging thing in Neverland. I was willing to buy it – I mean, it made sense kind of. But it was too broad, and there were certain things that confused me. I mean – the random appearance of strangers from other islands. The ease of the pirates in slipping from this fantastic place to “the real world” – it definitely gave off a bit of a LOST vibe. But I had a hard time understanding how the aging process worked with the Lost Boys – and if it even affected the pirates. Does it affect others when they leave and come back? I don’t know. It was just not a consistent idea – but it did have merit.

Simplicity. I know this is a young adult book – but this was simple even for being one. Generally speaking, the storylines are easier to follow, the character development a little more obvious – I get all of that. But Tiger Lily sported some fairly juvenile writing that started to get on my nerves about 1/4th of the way into the book. I simply didn’t want to pick it up anymore because I felt as if rather than being allowed to envision the story in my imagination, everything was being laid out and explained to me with very simple words.

So in short – disappointed. I give Anderson full credit though for coming up with a reason for the aging/non-aging of individuals in a classic story .. but the rest of the book fell short for me.

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